


"Unrelated Askbox Meme" Prompt Fills

by littleskywatcher



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Kairos (O'Keefe) Series - Madeleine L'Engle, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Original Work, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, they're too short to be posted separately i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-05-20 22:44:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6028201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleskywatcher/pseuds/littleskywatcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is cross-posted from tumblr, more for my own bookkeeping than anything else. The prompt:</p>
<p>"<b>ask meme:</b> put three things in my askbox that look like they could be part of an ask meme, but in truth are just a string of barely-related words/letters. i will answer them somehow."</p>
<p><b>FANDOMS:</b><br/>Lord of the Rings--Chapter 2<br/>Kairos (O'Keefe)--Chapter 3<br/>Stars, Rain, Sun, Moon (YW/MCU)--Chapter 4<br/>Young Wizards--Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 9, Chapter 10<br/>Marvel Cinematic Universe--Chapter 7<br/>Harry Potter--Chapter 8<br/><br/><em>Chapter 11 has moved!</em> You can find it at <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/13447215/chapters/30821835">Martian Girl</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. candle wicks, maple leaves, old postage stamps

Writing a letter, sitting on the screened-in back porch in early fall, just as the leaves are starting to turn. It's a really nice place to sit--there's just enough of a breeze to keep the air moving, and during the golden hour the place is filled with swirling dust motes and dappled shadows from the maple trees in the yard. The scented candle burning on the table in the corner is nearing the end of its life, and smells more like burnt candle wick than anything else, but there are worse smells in the world than candle-smoke.

The letter's a bit longer than usual--a lot has happened since the last one, and Life got so there wasn't time for a proper reply until now--but it's almost done. The envelope is already addressed and stamped (an old sailboat stamp from the attic), waiting patiently on the table next to the candle. The breeze picks up, the candle sputters and dies, but that's all right. The letter's finished anyway.


	2. star, secret, metal

Gimli son of Gloin stood, bathed in the light from the Lady Galadriel's pool, and wished almost more than anything else that his armor was a little less travel-worn. It suddenly seemed vital that the lady know how brightly dwarven-forged armor and steel could glitter in starlight. He opened his mouth, about to apologize, but one serene smile from Lady Galadriel rid his tongue of all the words he'd planned.

Instead, voice cracking as it hadn't in many years, he asked a boon. A silly token, really, not practical and certainly not deserved. He expected her to laugh, to scoff, to turn him away. What business could a dwarf, a creature of earth and darkness, have with this being of starlight and wonder? But she granted his request threefold. Gimli son of Gloin had three hairs of the fairest creature he had ever seen, and could ever hope to see. Just the thought made his heart tremble in his chest. He had his token, and he would carry it close.

The feeling of her whisper-light lips on his forehead was a secret he would carry to his grave.


	3. truck, eraser, map of australia

Kate Murry loved her youngest son, she really did. But sometimes she wished he wasn't quite so _perceptive_. Sometimes a mother wants a place to cry without her children's supervision.

The thing about Charles Wallace was that he wouldn't always _ask_ her what was wrong. Most nights he would simply sit, regarding her silently with eyes simultaneously very young and very old, and wait for her to start talking. It occurred to her that she was his mother, _she_ was supposed to be the one doing the comforting. But sometimes, in the wee hours, he looked so small and so solemn, that she would talk to him. Never about anything she didn't want him to know--too perceptive or not, she did still have a mother's duty to protect her child--but it was more than she would have told Meg or Sandy or Dennys, sometimes. They had a curious relationship, during these nighttime visits, but she liked to think it helped them both.

This time she had been on her way down to the kitchen (she hadn't been able to bear the thought of the lab that night, scattered as half of it was with remnants of Alex's half-finished experiments). She'd forgotten to skip the squeaky step, and the noise had brought Charles Wallace out of his room into the stairwell. Now he sat opposite her at the kitchen table, short chubby legs swinging slightly. Milk warmed quietly in a saucepan on the stove-Charles Wallace still deeply associated hot cocoa with comfort, and it was his beverage of choice on late nights like these.

She idly moved a toy truck (leftover from the very short period during which the Murrys had tried to buy "normal" toys for their youngest son) back and forth across the table, wondering what she would tell him tonight. She thought Sandy or Dennys may have been using the toy for a school project: the table was littered with crumpled pages of notes, several pencils, and half an eraser. She smiled and the scrawly doodle of the same truck on one of the pages, but a question from Charles Wallace froze the smile on her face.

"Where's father, mother?"

Usually he would not be so bold. Usually he would ask what was wrong, or what she had dreamed of, or why she was up so late. But tonight, rain lashed the windows, and the small intelligent boy who sat across the table from her sounded like nothing more than a child who missed his father.

She sighed. The tears were for times when no one could see her--she wouldn't do that to a child--but they were always close, on nights like this. "I don't know, Charles," she said tiredly. She would not lie to him. "But he will come home as soon as she can." The last part had become her mantra, these past months. It sounded rehearsed, even to her own ears, but she would not let herself doubt.

She noticed Charles Wallace's eyes on the truck in her hands and settled on a memory for tonight. She felt her smile warm in spite of herself. "Go and find me that map of Australia, and we can drive this truck over the route your father and I took on a roadtrip once..."


	4. cherry, sunflower, lackadaisical

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> based in [adiva_calandia](http://archiveofourown.org/users/adiva_calandia/pseuds/adiva_calandia)'s "[Stars, Rain, Sun, Moon](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1506209/chapters/3181238)" 'verse, a blending of Young Wizards with the MCU
> 
> direct reference to [AtypicalOwl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AtypicalOwl/pseuds/AtypicalOwl)'s "[Chocolate Kisses and Potshots at Gods](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1588721)", set in the same 'verse

It's summer, it's Sunday, and somehow Carmela finds herself wandering arm-in-arm with Darcy through a farmer's market in New Mexico. Darcy's got a bag of cherries, from which Carmela periodically snags a handful or two. (Each was deeply amused to find that the other could tie the stem into a knot with her tongue.) 'Mela has a sunflower tucked behind one ear, pressed upon her by a seller with a lackadaisical smile when he noticed her admiring the sunny petals. They don't have anywhere in particular to be, and they're enjoying the sunshine and each other and arguing peaceably about the best summer produce.

"But Hatch chilies are so _versatile_ ," Darcy insists. "They literally make anything taste better."

Carmela scoffs. "I can get chilies most of the year, though. I'm thinking of produce that is only really good during the _summer_."

"You can't get _Hatch_ chilies any time of--wait." Darcy stops midsentence and stares at Carmela accusatorily. "Have you even _had_ Hatch chili?"

"Well, no, but I've obviously had chilies before, and they're all relatively the same, so--"

"But you haven't had Hatch chili?" Darcy shakes her head slowly and looks to the heavens. "Forgive me, Dating Gods, for I have failed in my duties as a girlfriend." She fixes Carmela with a Look. "I'm cooking tonight," she declares, and before 'Mela can respond she's being dragged off down the row of stalls in search of ingredients.


	5. just, condensation, textile

Dairine Callahan, teenage wizard, sometimes finds herself wishing she could rewrite certain parts of her identity. Right now, as her alarm blares too loudly at too early in the morning, it's the "teenage" part--her life could be _so much easier_ if she was older, she reasons. She wouldn't have to fight to be taken seriously, and hopefully her body wouldn't need so much SLEEP.

She slaps her alarm clock rather harder than is probably absolutely necessary and shambles out of bed and down the hall more or less on autopilot. She lets the hot water wake up her body, at least, and slowly her brain follows suit. Emerging, she towels off and rummages around in her otherspace pocket for something to wear. (She bounces between planets enough anymore that most of her clothes, Earthly or otherwise, just kind of live in there. She knows the anti-wrinkle spell so well now that she can literally say it in her sleep.)

Clothed, she rubs condensation off the mirror and scowls at her reflection. Too young to be taken seriously on Earth, too Terran to be taken seriously on Wellakh, too feminine to be really taken seriously on either planet when she tries to explain that she and Roshaun had been (and still _are_ , she tells herself fiercely) "just friends".

 _For so high and honorable an estate_ , Roshaun's voice rises gently up from her memory, 'just' _seems a poor modifier to choose_.

The memory makes her inexplicably angry. She moves the formal Wellakhit textile garment with its too-tall collar away from her throat and hisses at the emerald hidden there. _Well, maybe if you were_ here _to help me explain, instead of_ wherever the heck _you are, they'd believe_ you, she tells the memory furiously. To her it's always "young love" or "lost her head over a pretty boy" or "isn't her denial sweet". It makes her sick. She hears in it that soft familiar laughter of the world at her back. That old anger, the once she once thought she'd leave behind once she became a wizard, makes her snarl.

 _I am not too young, and I am not a girl_ , she thinks with such force that she can feel her hands shake and heat bloom across her cheeks.

_I am fire, and I am rage._


	6. December, marjoram, 12000

It had been a long day at work. the shop had been busy (December tended to be just one long push, honestly) and his usual help had called in sick at the last minute so it had been just him. Really, all he wanted was to be able to put his feet up in a warm house and read the newspaper for awhile–but when Harry Callahan opened the door to his house to find his nose tickled by a deliciously autumnal aroma, he knew his night was not going to be any shorter.

“Honey?” he called over the noise of the blender as he entered, making sure both doors swung shut behind him and stamping his boots on the doormat. He knew he would find his wife in the kitchen, but he also knew it probably wasn’t the best idea to startle her right now. Betty Callahan was cooking, and by the sound and smell of it she was cooking something complicated. Betty loved to cook as a hobby, but she also cooked as therapy, and Harry started to worry when he heard the sound of the oven door opening and closing during a pause in the blending.

The kitchen was clearly in use. There were approximately 12000 pots in the sink–he swore every time she went on a cooking spree like this they somehow acquired even _more_  dishes. He’d almost accuse one of their daughters of squirreling them away with magic, somehow, because he could rarely find some of them outside of a cooking spree, but that would mean Betty wouldn’t have been able to find them, either. He’d finally just shrugged and accepted it as one of those mysteries he’d hopefully never need to solve. Something bubbled cheerfully in a large pot on the stove, and as he watched, Betty dumped the very orange contents of the blender into the pot. He smiled out of habit, always enjoying her grace. There was flour all over one counter, and the next time she opened the oven door he caught a whiff of something that was unmistakably pumpkin bread. But also chicken. He sighed. They were going to eat well tonight–probably for the next few nights–after she calmed down, at least.

“Betty?” he said, hesitantly. She hadn’t heard him come in. He put a hand on her shoulder and she jumped guiltily.

“Harry,” she replied as she turned, and stood on tiptoe to kiss him absently. The timer on the fridge beeped almost before their lips touched, and Betty glided away to turn down the heat under the pot. He followed her, lifting up the lid to take a sniff. Butternut squash (that explained the orange), and that curious blend of spices that he couldn’t quite identify except that it smelled like fall. He grinned and set the lid down before she could smack his hand away.

She expected nothing less. “Don’t touch that, it’s almost ready,” she scolded, but there was no threat to her words. “The chicken should be done right before then, and the pumpkin bread just after.”

Harry smiled, bemused. “What’s the occasion?” he asked, but they both knew what he meant. He’d been studying her carefully, and her teasing tone was too bright to be convincing.

“Let me get this out of the oven first.” She reached up to kiss him again, using her grip on his shoulders to spin him out of her way. He shook his head–( _Dancers._ )–but let himself be steered to the edge of the kitchen as she bustled around, opening and closing cupboards and moving ingredients to make room for finished products. Once the chicken was cooling on top of the stove and the bread was on a rack on the counter and he wasn’t in danger of being bumped by a hot dish, Harry stepped back in and leaned against the sink (careful not to dislodge a soapy pot).

“So what’s the occasion?” he repeated, in a tone that he knew would make Betty look up at him.

“Our daughters aren’t home,” she said simply, looking away after acknowledging his question.

He took in the tension in her shoulders, the little furrow in her brow she got when she was worried, wondering where she was going with this. “That happens a lot, lately,” he reminded her gently. “It usually doesn’t merit this much fuss.”

She pulled a note off the fridge, handed it to him, and turned away to stare at the flour-covered counter.

“Gone out on business,” it read in Nita’s tidy scrawl–she’d adopted Kit’s code with his family for errantry. “Don’t worry if I’m not back ‘til late.” “(Me too.)” was added in Dairine’s usual scribble, in a different color.

Harry nodded. “This is normal for them, though. If there was anything to worry about, they’d tell us.”

“But would they?” Betty asked almost desperately. “They didn’t tell us before–Nita didn’t tell us until she was ready to _die_  for this, and even then it was only because she felt obligated to tell us, not because we could do anything about it. Before we could really process anything, she and Kit were off in some uncharted galaxy somewhere. ‘We didn’t want to worry you,’ she said when they got back. As if chasing her sister across the _universe_  and facing the _Power that invented Death Itself_ for the third time in not even that many years is something _normal_ , something not worth mentioning until _after_  the fact.”

“It is, for them.” Harry’s voice was quiet; he had had this argument with himself before.

“But it’s _not fair!”_ she exclaimed, hitting the counter with such force that one of the little spice jars on the edge toppled off and shattered. She swore and sat down on the floor in defeat. “It’s not fair,” she said again, in a voice thick with unshed tears. “They’re just kids.”

Harry knelt down in the spilled marjoram with her and caught her face in his hands. “Hey,” he said, brushing away a tear with his thumb. “It’s not fair. You’re right. But we knew they were going to have to grow up sometime. Didn’t you always say they would grow up to change the world?”

Betty gave a watery laugh, leaning into his touch. “I don’t think that’s what I meant.”

Harry chuckled wryly. “If there’s anything I’ve learned from our daughters, it’s that you really have to watch what you say, when there’s magic involved.”

Betty buried her face in his shoulder briefly, and he held her, trying to convince her with the tightness of his embrace that he didn’t know how, but somehow things would be all right, and that even if they weren’t, they would face them together. “I just wish we could _do_  something,” she said finally, voice muffled by his shirt.

“We _are_  doing something,” he replied after a moment, stroking her hair. “They may be growing up, but they still need us. They need us to be a safe port in the storm. Now that we know what they’re doing, they need us to support them, because heaven knows they don’t get enough of that on the job.”

“And magic isn’t the only way to combat That One,” he continued, remembering something Tom had said. “Turning off the lights when we’re not in the room, smiling at strangers in the store… Picking up scattered marjoram,” he added with a half-laugh, gesturing at the mess they were kneeling in.

Betty took a deep breath, brushed herself off, and looked at him. “I love you, you know?” she told him, and kissed him soundly. “Let’s get this picked up and eat. And then maybe you can help me stick it to That One’s current incarnation in our kitchen. Our weapons? Soap and water.”


	7. hands, the cool of early fall, a lone hill

The sun is setting and a mist is gathering on a September evening. The air is still with a hint of a chill; the warmth of late-lingering summer is slowly starting to give way to the cool of early fall. A lone hill rises out of the mist, like some stony giant shrugged a shoulder in its sleep and forgot to smooth its blanket of earth down once again. A tree spreads its leaves over the hill, standing solitary sentinel over the slumbering lands below.

A figure sits with his back against the tree’s rough bark, sketchbook resting across his knees. His hands are smudged with charcoal–he’ll have to wash them before one of the incredibly observant superspies in the house notices. (Or, for all he knows, one of the incredibly observant children. Tony is convinced they’re agents, too, but the look on Clint’s face when he saw them–the love and the terror and the longing–makes Steve sure they really are his family. _Doesn’t mean they’re not reporting to Fury, though_ , says a small part of him that he wishes would stay quiet. That small part of him has gotten louder lately, and since the incident with the helicarriers, he’s been grudgingly listening to it.) He sketched a lot back in the old days, but since waking up in the 21st century it’s felt somehow much more personal than it used to, a private thing. He used to show Peggy what he’d drawn, but opening up to her anymore makes it hurt worse when she lapses back into the past, reminding him that what _was_  and what _might have been_  are starkly different from what _is._ He doesn’t really want to share that with anyone else, yet.

He sighs and looks over his sketching. There’s not really enough light to finish it now anyway, and if he isn’t back at the Barton house by dark someone will think to wonder where he’s gone. The Winter Soldier stares back at him, with Hydra’s mark on his metal arm and eyes that yank him back eighty years to his best friend and partner in crime, to the man he followed into the war and the man he lost there. Bucky’s eyes. Once he’d realized why the eyes behind the mask were so familiar, he started having dreams about them. Nightmares, fever dreams, memory dreams…dreams even more private to him than his sketchbook.

He shakes his head to clear it and squints at the sketch with an artist’s eye. He’s put too much time into the eyes, he decides, if the mere sight of them can bring a flush to his cheeks and a lump to his throat. Next time he should focus on his hair. _Maybe I’ll give it a trim_ , he thinks to amuse himself. The Bucky he knew couldn’t stand hair on the back of his neck. Focusing on the thought of his Bucky seeing himself with long hair, smiling at the image of his Bucky with a ponytail, he closes his sketchbook and tucks his pencil behind his ear. He rises, lays a companionable hand on the silent sentry that had served him as a backrest, and slowly starts toward Clint’s home.

 _Enough dwelling on the past_ , he tells himself, and he can feel the weight of responsibility settling more heavily on his shoulders with every step. He’s got a team to take care of, and Ultron is out there. Even if they’re off the grid, they can’t hide forever.


	8. meander, fluffy, apologies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> based in [copperbadge](http://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge)'s "[Stealing Harryverse](http://archiveofourown.org/series/58157)", which explores how Harry Potter's life would have gone differently had Sirius Black _not_ managed to corner Peter Pettigrew the night Harry's parents were murdered

The stream that meandered through their backyard in Betwys Beddau babbled merrily, almost drowning out young Harry’s shrieks as he splashed about with his godfather. Padfoot barked joyously, tail wagging fiercely as he mock-chased Harry through the shallow water. Remus smiled fondly over the top of his book. “Watch your footing, Harry,” he warned. “You don’t want to slip and wind up in a cast again!”

Remus could almost hear Harry rolling his eyes from twenty paces away. “I will, Remus!” he promised, but Remus could feel the warning slipping away with the water Harry shook out of his hair. Ah well, he tried. Padfoot barked, presumably to assure Remus that he, too, would watch Harry’s footing. Comforting, he thought dryly. Padfoot was not exactly known for his grace in the water. As if to confirm his thought, the big dog slipped and went all the way under, shaking himself vigorously (and further drenching the already dripping Harry) as he emerged. Remus shook his head, grinning in spite of himself.

It wasn’t too much longer before Harry came and flopped down on the grass next to Remus, spread out to dry in the sun. “Whatcha reading?” he asked curiously, and the older man smiled to hear his bibliophilia from the mouth of a child. He held out the book for the boy to inspect. “ _The Golden Compass_ ,” Harry read. “Can I borrow it when you’re done?”

“Sure, Harry,” Remus promised, but Harry wasn’t paying attention–Padfoot had finally come up from the river, sopping wet, and was attempting to cover the boy in doggy kisses and dark fur.

“Padfoot!” Harry scolded, laughing, “I was almost dry!”

Remus laughed, too, and Padfoot barked, transferring his attentions to the man. “Augh–Sirius–!” he protested halfheartedly, holding his book up and out of the way. (Harry helpfully plucked it out of his fingers and set it aside before jumping back into the fray.) Man and dog and boy rolled in an riotous tangle of laughter and limb and dog fur, alternately tickling (for Remus) or licking (for Padfoot) Harry and fending off the advances (or dog fur) of the others.

Eventually they fell apart, breathless, giggling, damp, and absolutely _covered_  in dog fur, and spread out in the sunshine. “Really, Sirius,” Remus started once he could breathe again, “when I said ‘let’s enjoy the summer day’ I didn’t mean ‘all I want in life is to smell like wet dog.’”

“At least the book’s okay,” Harry pointed out brightly. Sirius had evidently transformed, because his warm laugh joined Remus’ own. The boy clearly had his priorities straight.

“Look at you, pup,” Sirius chuckled, ruffling his godson’s incredibly fluffy hair and taking a good sniff. He wrinkled his nose. “You smell terrible.”

“Your fault,” said Harry and Remus at the same time, and Remus tweaked Harry’s nose. “Shower. Now,” he said, pointing at Harry. “Shake out those clothes and hang them to dry when you’re done. Maybe we’ll grill out tonight.”

Harry scampered off obediently, hissing a greeting to the Snake sunning itself as he passed. Remus watched him go, still smiling, then turned to Sirius. “I’m going to need a shower, too, you bad dog,” he complained.

Sirius beamed, unrepentant. “Me, too,” he decided, and leaned close. “We’d save water if we shared,” he murmured, and Remus _knew_  he knew what that tone could do to him. “I can make my…apologies.”

“Harry’d better hurry up in that shower,” Remus managed finally. “We want to get the grill started before it’s dark.”


	9. bubble wrap, garbage truck, fog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (GWP spoilers!)

Fog covered the city like a blanket. The buildings were used to this; occasionally one or two of the older ones would remark that at least they weren’t on fire, or shaking. The residents made similar it-could-be-worse jokes--at least it wasn’t smog, like the southern part of the state. But there was something about a foggy city at night. The lights shimmered differently, familiar shapes cast unfamiliar shadows, sound was muted just so, that poets heard whispers of other worlds and even the most down-to-earth denizens sometimes wondered if maybe, just maybe, magic might be real after all.

A garbage truck trundled through one of the higher-end neighborhoods, startling a teenage wizard from restless sleep. The wizard rubbed his eyes unhappily and glared at the view of the foggy bay spread out in front of his window. It was still too early for false dawn, but the tightness in his chest told him he wouldn’t find even restless sleep again that night. For Penn Shao-Feng, magic was all too real, and somehow he was expected to use it to not only win a competition without making a fool of himself in front of his mentors or the entire rest of the Terran wizarding population, but to do so without breaking into a thousand little pieces from this reaching-stretching-aching-yearning _something_ that had gotten into all the quiet places in his being and _wouldn’t leave him alone_.

One of the bubbles around his carefully bubble-wrapped composure punctured, _snap!_

He sighed and shoved a hand through his hair, automatically reaching for caffeine even though he knew it would probably just make his jitters worse. _Jitters mean you’re still moving, darling, and the game doesn’t stop for anyone_ , said the part of him that always took over in social situations, lately. That part wore a smarmy smile that the real Penn didn’t feel like he’d been able to properly reproduce for the past several days. Even his mentors had noticed. He took a sip of the stale coffee and made a face–the shot of caffeine made his entire being wobble. After a few deep breaths his mind cleared a little, and he was able to call up his spell diagram without feeling like he was going to vibrate into the next higher dimension.

He looked at the spell for what felt like the thousandth time in three days and felt another bubble go _snap!_ , like when he was a kid playing with shipping supplies in the back of his parents’ store. The part of him that had grinned earlier positively _preened_ now. He knew it was a good spell, one of his best. He also knew (though it cost him to admit it) that it wouldn’t be nearly as good without the contributions of his mentors and (oh god) Nita’s kid sister. But still, he was really going to _go_ places with this.

His eyes caught one of the empty places in the spell and held it. A different part of him, the part he kept trying to tamp down and shout out and ignore, rose up and nearly choked him with the reaching-stretching-aching-yearning _need_ to--

He wouldn’t finish the thought. He tore his eyes away from his spell, took a long pull of the stale coffee, and pretended to ignore the _snap!_ of another bubble around his composure.

That mental bubble wrap was looking pretty ragged, and he still had to convince a panel of judges that this spell was the thing they needed (which it was) instead of just the thing that _he_ needed (which it wasn’t--it would go into Manuals with his name on it, that was the important part--not the way that the yearning-longing-needing- _burning_ part of him shook when it looked at the spell).

 _God_ , what had he gotten himself _into?_


	10. blue, spine, spark

The ground is covered in leaves just beginning to be dry enough to crunch again, after last night’s rain. The sky is that crisp-clear-bright blue it gets after a good storm, and the only clouds are white and puffy and perfect for cloudwatching. A young man in a T-shirt stands doing just that, craning his neck and grinning even as he rubs his arms and shifts from foot to foot to keep warm.

His companion doesn’t look at the sky, but watches the young man in amusement. “Where’s your jacket? I’m surprised the puddles haven’t started to ice!”

“I’m fine,” insists the young man, determinedly clenching his jaw around a shiver. “Really. God, look at these clouds! And how blue the sky is compared to the leaves! I never thought fall could actually look like this!” He hugs himself tighter and valiantly tries to make it look like he’s shaking with excitement instead of cold. “Just give me a moment to adju--hey, what are you--why--no, stop that, I said I’m fine.” He sighs and takes a step back as his companion starts to take off a layer. “Carl, don’t.”

“Tom, I can practically see your lips turning blue. I know you own a jacket, I’ve seen you all bundled up as soon as the clouds come out and it’s below 60. C’mere.”

Tom huffs, annoyed, but it rather loses its effect as a shiver crawls up his spine instead. He glares at Carl but accepts the jacket. “Won’t you be cold?” he accuses as he shrugs into it.

“I grew up in Brooklyn. It’s not even chilly yet. Seriously, why did you leave your apartment without a jacket?”

“It’s clear and sunny outside! That means it’s supposed to be warmer than it was while it was raining!”

Carl laughs at him, deep and full of good-natured scorn. “You poor misguided soul. This time of year, no clouds mean nothing to keep the heat in!” He grins. “Delicate tropical flower. You’ll learn.”

Tom rolls his eyes at the teasing and jams his fingers into his armpits. “Fine. Mental note: never leave without a jacket after the first of October. Anything else?”

“Maybe actually pay attention to the weather forecast? Just because your Californian soul doesn’t understand eastern climate, doesn’t mean the local meteorologists don’t.”

“Oooof, try to put another negative in there, why don’t you?”

Carl makes a face. “Delicate California  _ English major _ flower. What have I done to deserve such a roommate?” he demands of the heavens, but Tom can see the spark of humor in his eyes as he says it.

“Everyone’s the answer to some problem,” he retorts with an angelic smile, and he’s too busy being pleased with himself to notice when Carl starts at his unconscious paraphrasal of a very common saying in wizardry.

“If you’re the answer, then I’m not sure I understand the question!” is the immediate response, and they’re both grinning a little wider than necessary and wishing the other one could possibly understand his reference. Their laughter is gradually replaced by the silence of a quiet fall afternoon. They each spend a moment pondering the likelihood of coincidences, but--

“Hey, that cloud looks like a dragon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (ok the immediate thing that comes to mind is the curve of the lotus rising out of the water like the spine of a shark--only this shark is smiling, all sanguine and silver and chrome, and on its antenna, somehow conveying the feeling of a dog shaking water out of its coat through nothing but light patterns, rides a blue-white spark of much-loved light… but that’s a scene that’s already been written. uhhhhh.)


End file.
